Telegraph: Why is the NHS under so much pressure? Their answer: its our fault for getting older and fatter!

“An ageing population. There are one million more people over the age of 65 than five years ago. This has caused a surge in demand for medical care.

[Owl: this has been known for DECADES and should have been built-in to spending forecasts]

Cuts to budgets for social care. While the NHS budget has been protected, social services for home helps and other care have fallen by 11 per cent in five years. This has caused record levels of “bedblocking”; people with no medical need to be in hospital are stuck there because they can’t be supported at home.

[Owl: the NHS budget has NOT been protected! In real terms, funding has fallen enormously]

Staff shortages. While hospital doctor and nurse numbers have risen over the last decade, they have not kept pace with the rise in demand. Meanwhile 2016 saw record numbers of GP practices close, displacing patients on to A&E departments as they seek medical advice.

[Staff shortages are due to austerity cuts and an exodus of EU workers, who are not replaced. Changing nursing bursaries to loans had exacerbated this serious problem]

Lifestyle factors. Drinking too much alcohol, smoking, a poor diet with not enough fruit and vegetables and not doing enough exercise are all major reasons for becoming unwell and needing to rely on our health services. Growing numbers of overweight children show this problem is currently set to continue.

[Many lifestyle problems are due to the government’s policies: allowing food and drink lobbies to dictate the sugar problem until it is too late, and not putting greater taxes on cigarettes and alcohol as this would reduce government income, shutting Sure Start services that promoted better parenting].

One thought on “Telegraph: Why is the NHS under so much pressure? Their answer: its our fault for getting older and fatter!”

Typical Daily Telegraph drivel that ignores facts and spouts propaganda because it is in the interests of the ultra-rich media tycoons David and Frederick Barclay who own the Daily Telegraph.

1. If the Conservatives stopped spending £10BN-£30BN PER YEAR on privatisation of the NHS, then there would be more than enough money to have the number of beds necessary to support the ageing population.

2. If the Conservatives were genuinely interested in reforming the eating habits of the population, they would legislate to ensure that – at a minimum – supermarkets offered low sugar products. As a diabetic I know that for example it is impossible to buy zero sugar fruit yogurts or zero sugar biscuits at supermarkets. Why? The vast majority of supermarkets in the remainder of Europe stock multiple types of each, so they clearly believe that there is a market for them and a profit to be ,ade. But Sainsbury, Tesco etc. don’t. Why? And why do Tesco etc. have multiple shelves and dedicated to literally hundreds of Gluten Free products when ceoliacs represent 1% of the population, whilst diabetics alone represent 6% of the population (ignoring other groups who want sugar free products) but at best have a handful of products stocked if any?

3. Regardless of both of the above, Parliament’s first duty is NOT to make the already ultra-rich Tory Party donors even richer, but instead to protect the health and well-being of the population, which in this case means ensuring that NHS money is spent on healthcare and not administration and that the amount made available is adequate to provide healthcare for all.

“If (business -people) were angels, no government would be necessary.”
James Madison, President of the USA

“The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.”
Thomas Jefferson, President of the USA

“If the people cannot trust their government to do the job for which it exists – to protect them and to promote their common welfare – all else is lost.”
Barack Obama, President of the USA

“It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their own selfish purposes.”
Andrew Jackson, President of the USA

“It was once said that the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.”
Hubert H. Humphrey, Politician of the USA

And ironically:
“I have embraced crying mothers who have lost their children because our politicians put their personal agendas before the national good. I have no patience for injustice, no tolerance for government incompetence, no sympathy for leaders who fail their citizens.”
Donald Trump, before he was President of the USA and before he slashed healthcare spending for those in the twilight & shadows of life.